Random Acts of Kindness

#Update...I won I won!! Chavah had 3 paintings, 3 winners, and I won one of them! Yes I am pretty darn excited:)

I have an internet bloggy friend Chavah in NZ that I have never actually met, but she knows my nephew (he was on his mission in her small town) and she knows people I went to school with. So you may as well say she's my cuzzy because in NZ you don't actually have to be related to be cousins! Anyway, she has a Random Acts of Kindness competition/giveaway going on at her blog. Actually it's been going on for a good month now, and the idea is to do a RAK, blog about it, and you are entered to win one of her paintings. She is a wonderful artist, a practicing artist who actively sells her work, and I would be so excited to have a piece of her art hanging in my home.

So for the last month I have thought about it every day and then my day ends and I think oh darn it, I didn't do any RAK's today! I can think of plenty that others have done for me, for example, just today my neighbor sent her son over with 4 packets of Tim Tams, my favorite kind of cookie, just because she loves me!
So maybe I should just enter her? And the Nuns at my favorite thrift shop gave my son some free toys for his birthday - should I enter the Nuns?! I think they'd be excited... But nah - they'd just sell the painting in the thrift store to make money for charity ;)

Then I think more, and maybe I have done some RAK's. We did buy 5 pre-packaged boxes of food for the food pantry... but that was 2 days before the competition started, so I'm not sure it counts. And I did help my friend make quilted monogram letter quilts for her nieces and nephews for Christmas.
And I know I've babysat for friends this last month. I did let someone with only 1 item in front of me at the grocery store today! And I volunteer up in our school's preschool every Friday. Does that count? Hmmm it's more of a planned thing, and not so random. I wish I had had the opportunity to do something truly random for strangers. It seems that this last month the only people I've really helped are my family. Like when I cleaned my boys' room 2 nights ago by myself (that never happens!) to surprise them. Or all the times I snowblow the driveway while hubby is sleeping so he can get out to work in the morning. But those are things that we all do, just because it's the way life works.

So I think this challenge has made me think about how I can help others more this year, and not just people I know and love. I'd like to go out of my way to help those I don't know, because I know that service makes you feel good, and we all need to feel good! So that begs another question - is service really a selfish act? Do we serve to make ourselves feel good?! Or is that just a side effect?! Either way, I'll keep trying to find ways to do Random Acts of Kindness in my every day life.